Montag, 20. Februar 2017

Playing without a full deck (13) - Adventure Resumee: One Night in Karazhan

About a month long time ago, I finished "One Night in Karazhan". Not only on normal... but on heroic as well. Now I've finally found the time to write complete my review of the adventure.

To reiterate, these are the four points I look at everytime:

> Optics

> Plot

> Bosses

> Cards

See you after the break!

Optics: There is something unique to ONiK that stands out even before the colour aspect: This adventure does not proceed from the top down like all before it, but from the bottom up, underlining the notion of being in the Tower of Karazhan. The predominant colour of the adventure is violet (in several shades), dark brown, and then a bunch of other colours in darker shades. This makes it look quite extravagant and regal, which is probably what Blizzard wanted.

Plot: Compared to LoE (the adventure before), this is less expansive, yet more concise. It's the same length (13 Bosses), and only covers a short amount of time. Briefly before the party, Medivh has his run-in with Malchezaar, and you hasten up the tower to save him just in time before things go awry. Clean, simple, devious. I like it. The feeling of urgency is created by Moroes often talking to you about the situation in the hall with hi-fucking-larious references (my preferred ones are the ones about Executus and Illidan).

Bosses: I'll split this into general and Heroic as usual. This time is special. I liked most of them, but it felt to me like the second and third wing were mere push-overs and could use some more OOMPH. And that's in heroic mode. Like it wasn't even funny. The last wing's first two bosses felt more like it, and Malchezaar2... made me craft Kethu-freaking-zad just to make it. But the one that really took it home for me here was that thrice-damned Magic Mirror. I hated that fight. It was BRM levels of bullshit. And it was very therapeutic when I finally beat it with a Priest, C'thun, and all the healing you could find. (Also, Explosive Sheep)

The most memorable fights besides those are, I guess, Terestian Illhoof, the Big Bad Wolf and Netherspite since they change the game the most. Really good fun.

It's bad that Malchezaar doesn't have individual emote responses like Kelthu-Freakin'-Zad - on the flip side - Medivh does in the opening fight, the Mirror does, and there are fun interactions - play a Direwolf Alpha in the BBW fight and you'll see.

Cards: Karazhan's cards - whilst there are semi-obvious duds like Purify - have proven highly popular, which is likely due to Blizzard not overly trying to force a deck type on us through them (we'll still not play beast druid, thank you very much). As for card highlights... I love the voice acting on Pompous Thespian. My most played card is probably Swashburglar. Or Priest of the Feast, I seriously enjoy that one. I once said that Arcane Anomaly was some of the best sex Priest would have - turns out, PotF beats that one easily.

Resumee: I liked this adventure, and I'm sad it'll have been the last of its kind. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did LoE, though, it was a tad too easy - with the exception of the Free Medivh! mission on heroic, which made me craft Kel'thuzad. Still, I'll recommend this adventure for anybody starting out in Hearthstone, since it'll last us until (roughly) April 2018. But more on that in my next article.

Addendum: I'm trying to write this as unbiased through Mean Streets of Gadgetzan as possible, but that's not easy to do. I was pushing to get it finally done. Also, at the time of this writing, I finished Heroic LoE and am merely Neferian1 and Nefarian2 away from finishing BRM.